Introduction to Workforce Support

Isabel Byon 0:00

The New York State Office of Addiction Services and Supports or OASAS , provides this podcast as a public service .

Isabel Byon 0:07

Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the agency or state . This is Addiction: The Next Step .

Jerry Gretzinger 0:19

Welcome to another edition of Addiction: The Next Step , the podcast brought to you by the New York State Offices of Addiction Services and Supports . I'm Jerry Gretzinger , your host , and today we are talking more about supporting the workforce . Now we've had several episodes where we've talked about scholarships that are available so that people can pursue their education to be able to provide services and supports , which we know are so critically necessary . There's a workforce crisis . There's not enough people . We want to change that . One of the people that's helping us to do that is Kalisha Smith . She joins us today . Thanks for sitting down with us , Kalisha .

Kalisha Smith 0:50

Of course , of course .

Jerry Gretzinger 0:51

So I want you to first tell us who do you work with . What do you guys do ?

Kalisha Smith 0:55

Yeah , so I am Kalisha Smith . I work with the Outreach Training Institute as part of the organization outreach . We have programming in Queens and Long Island , all through Suffolk County , Nassau County and all through the Island . So we provide residential treatment services . We provide outpatient mental health and substance use services . In our brand new CCBHC clinic out in Richmond Hill we have youth residential services , opioid treatment programming and outpatient substance use programming .

Jerry Gretzinger 1:25

A lot of good services being offered in programming .

Kalisha Smith 1:27

Yes , yeah .

Jerry Gretzinger 1:28

So I know today we're here to talk about some unique scholarship opportunities , but before we do that

Kalisha's Personal Connection to Addiction

Jerry Gretzinger 1:35

, you know , sometimes it's interesting to find out what drove people to get into this area of work right . I mean , everybody says you have to bring a passion , and sometimes that passion is from you know their experiences with substance use , either on their own or loved ones , and I know some of your information and I just wanted to see if you would share kind of what made you say this is the area of work I want to be doing .

Kalisha Smith 1:55

Yeah , you know it was a little bit of a while trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do with my career , and I like to say that this field chose me . I've always been a helper since I was younger and kind of navigated my life with family members who were plagued with addiction or not even knowing what an addiction actually was , until I started to get older , and so I grew up with an individual in my household who used substances and it never showed right . This person was near and dear to me and they still . They were my parent . They still showed all the signs of a parent , a great parent .

Kalisha Smith 2:39

But on the other side there was substance use happening that we weren't necessarily exposed to or aware of .

Kalisha Smith 2:48

But now that I'm older and looking back , you see the signs and you're able to connect the dots .

Kalisha Smith 2:54

And when I did get older , there was transparency in that in my household to help us understand like these are the things that are happening .

Kalisha Smith 3:02

And when my parents separated , my mom was also very transparent about you know what was going on in the household , and I think that kind of made me want to have more of an impact so that I can help to not only bring awareness , but also kind of like work in a space where we de-stigmatize individuals who have substance use disorders , who have a disease right and who can't necessarily always control some of the things that they are navigating in life . And I like to look at it as you know , in life there's always good and bad , and so individuals are always going to have struggles , and sometimes that struggle is substance use . And so for me , I like that I'm on the other side of that being able to empower individuals to get into our field , being able to teach individuals how to look at humans as a whole person and not just as a person with a disease or as a person with a substance use disorder , but being able to de-stigmatize that for everybody .

Jerry Gretzinger 4:02

Yeah , yeah , and so I think it's interesting . You talked about how you know . You lived a number of years with this person in your home who is a substance user . I didn't , didn't see the signs . Yeah , and I know . One of the things that you know , we say we can , we can provide to people is information If they are loved ones of someone that they're thinking may be using substances maybe they're not , but to help them understand what those signs are .

Kalisha Smith 4:27

Yeah , absolutely . Absolutely , and that's why it's important for me , in the role that I'm in

De-stigmatizing Substance Use Disorders

Kalisha Smith 4:32

as a training institute director , to be able to help people get on board with that and also just providing general education . I know OASAS does a great job at this being able to talk about what things might look like right , give warning signs and just give information to the masses to kind of de-stigmatize what we have going on .

Jerry Gretzinger 4:50

Right , the better we can help people to understand , the less stigma we hope will be in the community . Right , absolutely so . I think it's also interesting too , as we start moving towards the part of the conversation about scholarships . You know we talk about , you know who are the people who work in the addiction field , right , and I know a lot of times we talk about people having lived experience , and that can be someone who may have used substances and went through treatment , is in recovery and now wants to be that person to help others , but at the same time , someone like yourself who lived with someone who is using substances and now feels that passion to make a difference , right , so I mean the people who might be considering this line of work can really run a broad range .

Kalisha Smith 5:29

Yeah , oh , absolutely . I mean , some of our students do have lived experience . They're motivated by being in recovery and wanting to help in the way that they received care . We have a lot of individuals who are already in the field and you won't believe how many people that are mental health counselors , social workers , marriage and family therapists and don't necessarily know how to treat substance use disorders right , and so we love being able to take individuals in our program and help them learn and understand . How do you provide this treatment ? Because the world is moving towards integrated care . There's no such thing as providing a service without somebody coming in and might having some touch of substance use and being able to discern . Is this a problem or is this just normal situations that we're going through ? Right ?

Jerry Gretzinger 6:17

So then we get to the part now where someone okay , they may be listening saying , okay , well , let's hear that scholarship information , because we've said this a few different times in other episodes too one of the top barriers someone may have encountered wanting to do this is the cost associated with it .

Scholarship Opportunities for Addiction Professionals

Kalisha Smith 6:34

Absolutely . We get applications almost every day at Outreach . We are one of the top training providers in New York State and that is because we provide our program virtually . Now it's live virtual , and so what that means is that we have a platform where individuals will come on online and they'll take our program . We have four different tracks . We have a morning track and three evening tracks , so we make it accessible and with that , what happens is that individuals apply but they may not be able to afford our program .

Kalisha Smith 7:04

We offer need-based tuition assistance , but we also offer scholarships . Right now we have a scholarship that's covering the full cost of tuition for individuals that live in Suffolk County , and that's our Suffolk County Workforce Development Scholarship . We were afforded a bunch of grants this year . We had a grant from OASAS as well , our Addiction Professional Scholarship Program , and that we ran through that really quickly because it wasn't specific to just Suffolk residents , that was across the state . So anybody who wrote and completed the application was offered an opportunity to get that scholarship , which we are very grateful to OASAS for , and it's our hope that we'll get more funding to provide that scholarship to more people .

Kalisha Smith 7:46

But the cost is a real , true concern , right ? Our program can run up to $6,000 , but this scholarship , especially the Suffolk scholarship , is covering the full cost and one of the things that this actually does is create a great pathway for individuals to get into employment , because we not only provide the training for our individuals , we provide all material , all training to get them to the place where they meet the 350-hour requirement to become a CASAC-T . We also place all of our individuals in internships , so we have a robust career development program , a professional development program to get them ready to go into the field , even if they may have had experience . No matter where you are , we provide an internship placement opportunity and those individuals go and work in OASAS licensed programs to provide treatment services . In turn , they learn the 12 core functions of being an addiction professional and they're able to go on and hopefully it's a pathway for them to gain employment after .

Jerry Gretzinger 8:42

Oh , that's great . And so you were talking about 350 hours . So how long is the course to get to that point , like weeks , months

Training Program Structure and Entry Points

Jerry Gretzinger 8:52

? How long is it ?

Kalisha Smith 8:52

Yeah , so our full program is 12 months . We do have an accelerated program for individuals who have a master's degree in social work , so a degree in social work , mental health , counseling , marriage and family therapy , and also there's another one . But if you have one of the degrees that is acceptable , we'll review and ensure that you meet the requirements . To do a shorter program it's 135 hours and those individuals don't have to go through all of the basics because they would have already had that . They'll provide us a transcript and we'll be able to corroborate that for them . But for anybody else there's a 350 hour program .

Kalisha Smith 9:30

It runs a span of 12 months and one of the beauties of OTI Outreach Training Institute is that we have rolling admissions , so we we admit students every single month . Right now we are able to take them at different path , at different entry points , and what that means is that you wouldn't have to wait until September to come into our program . So our semester technically is from September to July , but individuals don't have to start in September . So we have a cohort that will begin in January . We take a little break for the holidays in December , but we'll start a new cohort in January , especially for the Suffolk Scholarship . We want to try to get individuals in for that January cohort . So we're telling everybody you know get your applications in for that December deadline so that they can start in January and then they'll go for a full 12 months in our program .

Jerry Gretzinger 10:19

All right , so the two scholarships we know there's the OASAS one , the Addiction Professional Scholarship , and that's . You know , people can . You may be down in the Brooklyn area , but they can be anywhere and since there's a virtual component they can participate that way . And then there's the county scholarship and that's for people in the county , I assume .

Kalisha Smith 10:35

Yes , that's for individuals who reside in Suffolk County . We also will help them find internships in the county and that's really to build the Suffolk County workforce . However , our program is open to anybody in New York so you can be anywhere in the state and take our program . We're virtual . You would never have to come into our training Institute . They can do everything

How to Apply and Contact Information

Kalisha Smith 10:54

online . Our interviews are done remotely , all coordination is done online and they can get right in .

Jerry Gretzinger 10:59

It opens up opportunity with technology .

Kalisha Smith 11:01

Yes , listen , people can learn right from the comfort of their home . It makes it accessible , especially when you're trying to navigate real life right and still working in the field as well . You can come right in and still get your training .

Jerry Gretzinger 11:12

All right , so website, phone numbers . What do you want people to know ?

Kalisha Smith 11:16

Yes , if you go to OPINY . org , you'll see all of our information . We are underneath the Training Institute on the website . It should pop up right in the middle . You'll see a slide that says Outreach Training Institute , or OTI , and they're able to log in and fill out an application and we're accepting applications right now .

Jerry Gretzinger 11:36

Perfect , all right , Kalisha , thank you so much for sitting down with us .

Kalisha Smith 11:39

Absolutely .

Jerry Gretzinger 11:40

Nice to have you here to hear your story and what we can do to help people go to work and do all this important stuff .

Kalisha Smith 11:44

Absolutely .

Kalisha Smith 11:45

Thank you so much .

Jerry Gretzinger 11:46

And once again , you know you can always go to our website as well . That's oasas . ny . gov , O-A-S-A-S . N-Y . G-O-V and the HOPEline 877-8-HOPE-NY . I'm your host , Jerry Gretzinger , for Addiction . The Next Step . Until we see you next time, be well .